Harpoon Brews New Beer With Charles River Water

BOSTON (CBS) – The Charles River has never been really known as the cleanest river, but these days, parts of it are good enough to swim in and now there’s a new chapter. The Harpoon Brewery is using water from the river in their new Charles River Pale Ale.

“This is really exciting,” says Harpoon President Charlie Storey. “We’ve done a lot of experimentation with beer ingredients over the years, different spices, herbs, unusual hop varieties, but we’ve never really experimented with different water sources so this is a first for us and we’re thrilled about it.”

A Newton company called Desalitech treated the river water until it was more pure than tap water. Now the beer is aging in huge vats at the brewery.